Inkjet printers have become popular for printing on media, especially when precise printing of color images is needed. For instance, such printers have become popular for printing color image files generated using digital cameras, for printing color copies of business presentations, and so on. Industrial usage of inkjet printers has also become common for high-speed color printing on large numbers of items. An inkjet printer is more generically a fluid-ejection device that ejects drops of fluid, such as ink, onto media, such as paper.
To ensure the highest quality of inkjet printing output, many variables usually have to be considered. One such variable is the fluid drop mass, or size, of ink drops that each inkjet printhead outputs. An inkjet printer may include a number of different printheads, corresponding, for instance, to a particular color model, such as the cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK) color model, so that nearly any color can be achieved by outputting various combinations of the differently colored inks. For proper color matching, the fluid drop masses output by the different printheads should have constant, or consistent, ratios with respect to one another.
However, manufacturing, environmental, and other variations and factors can affect the fluid drop masses output by the inkjet printheads of inkjet printers. Different printheads within the same inkjet printer may output ink drops that have different fluid drop masses. An inkjet printhead outputting cyan ink, for instance, may output cyan ink drops that have different drop masses than those of magenta ink drops output by another inkjet printhead. Such a mismatch in ink drop masses within the same printer can result in less than optimal inkjet printing output quality.